


Acquainted With The Night

by DementedPixie



Series: Demented Pixie's Pros Fic [5]
Category: The Professionals (TV 1977)
Genre: Brainwashing, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Hurt William Bodie, Hurt/Comfort, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-09
Updated: 2020-02-09
Packaged: 2021-02-28 03:28:17
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,005
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22637605
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DementedPixie/pseuds/DementedPixie
Summary: Bodie's back on duty after a period of recovery, but is he really out of the woods?PLEASE DO NOT RE-POST THIS STORY ON ANY OTHER PLATFORM.
Relationships: William Bodie/Ray Doyle
Series: Demented Pixie's Pros Fic [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1264832
Kudos: 11





	Acquainted With The Night

**Author's Note:**

> My name is Demented Pixie and I’m a Pros fan, but that hasn’t always been my name. If you knew me as In Love With Both and you’re a friend, then you’ll already know why I left the fandom some years back. But, hey, a girl can change her mind, and I have therefore decided to re-share my Professionals fanfiction on this amazing Archive – no changes, no improvements, no alterations. I’ll be posting them just as they were written. No comments, no trolls, and no betas. Just me and my stories. I’m sharing them so that they can take their place in the archive, but I’m also sharing them for the Pros generation, for those future generations yet to discover Bodie and Doyle, and for Sandra, who has never ceased waving pompoms for all Pros fanfiction writers.  
> The following story was written by me in 2012.

Acquainted With The Night  
By ILWB

It shouldn’t have been this way. It should have been me lying injured in a hospital bed, not my pig headed, fool hardy, too loyal for his own good partner. And, as much as he tried to brush it aside and pretend it hadn’t happened, he knew it too. Because if I hadn’t rushed in without checking the building properly then he wouldn’t have come after me. And if he hadn’t come after me he wouldn’t have had to protect me from the force of the blast while taking the brunt of the impact himself. 

“I’ll make it up to you,” I promised both him and myself. 

And in the end it wasn’t days later that I was able to fulfil my promise, or even weeks. It took three long months of hospital and recovery time for Bodie to get back on active duty again, complete with two extra bits of metal in his leg. 

Three months and six days from the date of the explosion and he was back in trouble again. So this is where I get to pay my debt, right? Only it didn’t quite work out that way. 

******

Why do you resist? 

Why do you fight it?

You’re here because you’re expendable. 

It’s their fault you’re here.

They don’t care about you.

They never have.

******

“Drink?” asked Cowley, as he pulled a bottle of whisky out of his desk drawer. 

“Bit early for me,” replied Doyle, nodding at the wall clock.

“Aye,” said Cowley, ignoring the comment and pouring two measures anyway. “Here.”

Doyle took the crystal glass and raised it in salute. “Cheers.”

Cowley knocked back half the contents of the glass and surveyed Doyle, carefully. “How’s Bodie?” he asked. 

Doyle tilted his head to one side in suspicion as he considered his reply. “Fine. Back to A1 condition. But Macklin could have told you that.”

Cowley ignored the hint of sarcasm and tried again. “He’s not sleeping.”

“No?” Doyle feigned ignorance. 

“You know he’s not.”

“Do I?”

“Is his leg giving him trouble?”

“No!” Doyle put the glass back on the desk and walked across to the window, quickly turning to look back at his boss. “What are you getting at?”

“He’s been back a week,” replied Cowley, “but it’s like he’s not back at all. You can’t tell me you haven’t noticed. You know him better than most.”

“Better than anyone.”

“So?”

“So... it always takes some getting used to when you come back to work after being off sick. He’ll be fine.”

“And if he wasn’t on top form you’d be the last person to tell me so, isn’t that right, Doyle?”

“Would you expect anything less?” 

“No,” said Cowley, at last giving Doyle a smile. “I don’t suppose I would.”

Doyle took that comment to mean the interview was over and he walked towards the door. 

“Oh, Doyle,” called Cowley, just as he was leaving. “But you’ll be watching out for him all the same, won’t you?”

“Yes, sir,” replied Doyle, without turning around. 

He’d always watch out for him. That’s what partners did. 

******

Their first proper Op together after Bodie’s return to active duty was, luckily, a low key affair. Four days of obbo duties with three teams on an eight hour rota at least meant that Doyle could keep careful watch on his partner and make sure he caught up on his sleep without anyone else noticing. 

And sleep Bodie did. He seemed to use the time on duty to make up for what appeared to be months of disturbed sleep and although Doyle made a few sarcastic remarks about him still being on holiday time, just so Bodie wouldn’t think Doyle was being kind and get suspicious, he was relieved beyond words to see his partner dropping off on the saggy old sofa whenever possible.

It wasn’t, however, what you would call good quality sleep. Even though Doyle’s time was mostly taken up with monitoring the binoculars that pointed towards the building opposite he was still very aware of his partner. And that was mainly because Bodie wasn’t sleeping peacefully. He tossed and turned, moaned and even whimpered, and Doyle found himself wondering several times what the best course of action should be. Should he wake Bodie up and save him from what appeared to be almost continual nightmares or should he let him get some rest, disturbed though it may be. 

Every couple of hours Doyle would give in and shake Bodie’s shoulder to wake him, on the pretence of offering him a cup of tea or a sandwich. But it seemed as though every time Bodie woke up he appeared even more tired than when he had gone to sleep. 

And Doyle couldn’t fathom it out at all. 

******

Need to sleep.

The job. Tell us the job.

I’ve told you.

We want to make sure you remember. 

I want to sleep now. I need to sleep.

Tell me and then you can sleep.

******

The days went by quietly, almost peacefully, or as peaceful as it can be in a bedsit over a Chinese takeaway with suspected kidnappers in a house opposite. And then the balloon went up. Movement in a doorway combined simultaneously with a phone call and it was all hands on deck. Doyle roused his partner while at the same time getting hold of Cowley on the R/T, aware that the backup team of Murphy and Anson were stationed in a nearby car waiting for this very moment. 

“Take the front,” barked Cowley. “Team two to follow up at the rear. And whoever is in there I want them alive.”

Bodie was up on his feet, fiddling with his shoulder holster and looking at Doyle with darkened eyes. 

“Okay?” asked Doyle.

Bodie nodded. “Yeah.”

And that seemed to be all they needed to say even though perhaps, in hindsight, there should have been so much more. 

******

As Bodie and Doyle got to the front door, flattening themselves against a handy piece of cover in the shape of a dilapidated trellis, Doyle took his R/T out of his pocket to check in before they forced entry. 

“6-2?”

“Ready,” crackled back the reply. 

Bodie moved quickly, balancing himself on the trellis one side and Doyle’s shoulder on the other as he kicked upwards to smash the door in. 

“Your leg’s better, then,” muttered Doyle as he pulled his gun from its holster. He didn’t get an answer but probably didn’t expect one.

They went into the house together, Bodie just a foot ahead of Doyle. Doyle reached out and placed a warning hand on his partner’s shoulder and they paused, listening, just as the sound of tinkling glass came echoing from the back. That meant that Murphy and Anson were in. 

“They’ll go down,” said Doyle, pointing towards a cellar door at the rear of the stairs which Murphy and Anson would find as they accessed the house from the kitchen. 

“Then we’ll go up,” replied Bodie, taking the lead. 

Well learned text book moves took them fluidly up to the first landing, expertly covering each other as they took each turn of the staircase. 

Three doors were kicked open and checked, each room proving empty and unfurnished. 

Bodie nodded upwards and they began to ascend further, moving tentatively up the narrow staircase that led to the attic rooms. 

“Cellar and downstairs rooms are clear,” came Murphy’s muffled voice from the R/T buried inside Bodie’s jacket. 

“If they’re here, they’re here,” whispered Doyle, nodding towards the two remaining doors. 

“If they’re here,” agreed Bodie. 

Guns raised, they kicked the first of the two doors down. It came straight off its hinges and smashed forwards into the room allowing them to run in over the top of it. 

Finding an empty room they immediately turned and went back onto the landing. 

“Isn’t it always the way?” commented Doyle. 

“Always the last place you look,” nodded Bodie. 

Like a well oiled machine they repeated the same move as before. This time the door swung inwards on half shattered hinges and there, in the corner, was the most definitely dead body of a young woman. The kidnap victim.

Bodie took one look at her and immediately walked towards the stone fireplace which he kicked, hard, with his boot. 

“Not had enough kicking for one day, then?” asked Doyle, as he crouched by the body to be absolutely sure there were no life signs. 

“This building was supposed to have been checked,” said Bodie, his lips tight against his teeth as he seethed. “We’ve been sitting over there,” he nodded towards the window, “for four days and how long has she been dead in here, eh?”

Doyle shrugged, assessing the body again. “I dunno. A day, maybe?”

“A day.” Another kick at the fireplace brought soot down the chimney. “Christ.”

Footsteps on the stairs got Doyle moving again and he went to the door to check that it was just Murphy and Anson. 

“Oh, shit,” said Murphy, as he walked into the room and saw the dead girl. “Cowley’s not going to like this.” 

It was a small room with a low ceiling by the window, but Anson still crowded in behind Murphy, tutting in annoyance.

“Cowley’s not going to like what?” came the voice of the head of CI5 as he too made his way into the small attic room and squeezed himself in. 

“How many CI5 agents does it take to save a kidnap victim,” said Anson, a grin on his face as he pulled a cigar from his inside pocket. 

“Now, now,” admonished Cowley, as he took in the scene. “Enough of that. Bodie, Murphy, get downstairs and call in the clean up boys. Doyle, you’d better fill me in.”

“Nothing to fill you in on, Sir,” said Doyle, watching as Bodie stomped out of the room with Murphy in his wake. “We went in, as arranged, no sign of anyone else and she was already dead.”

“A bad business,” said Cowley, waving away the smoke as Anson started to light his cigar. “Our information must have gone awry somewhere along the line.”

“Yeah, looks like it,” said Doyle, walking over to the tiny window and looking down at the busy street below. 

“Get busy,” instructed Cowley. “I want Malone and his boys to take this place apart. Doyle, you stay and supervise it. Anson, when you’ve finished here you and Murphy can go off duty.”

“Sir,” said Anson, smirking at Doyle. 

“But...” started Doyle.

“I know, you’ve been on since last night, too,” said Cowley, putting his hand up. “Once Malone gets here you and Bodie can clock off.”

“Right.”

“It’s a mess,” said Cowley, pausing to look once more at the girl’s body before heading back down the stairs.

“Yeah,” said Doyle to Anson. “You can bloody well say that again.” He sighed. “Wonder how long Malone’s going to be?”

“Got a hot date, have we?” 

“Hardly. A good night’s sleep would do it for me.”

“So I’ve heard.”

“Ha ha, very funny. Go on, get out of here. I’ll wait for Malone.”

“Right, thanks. See you tomorrow, Doyle.”

As Anson left, Doyle gazed back out of the window again, watching the raindrops stream down the dirty pane. He jumped a little when his R/T beeped and he pressed the transmission button as he pulled it awkwardly out of his pocket.

“4-5.”

“Doyle? Anson. Get down here, fast.”

Fast didn’t really describe Doyle’s descent from the attic room. Try rapid, swift or even high speed. Certainly he got there a hell of a lot quicker than when he and Bodie had made their way up only half an hour earlier. As he reached ground floor a muffled noise led him through to the kitchen where he found Anson. He was crouching over Murphy who was lying in a crumpled heap by the back door, struggling to sit up even as Anson kept pushing him back down.

“Lie still,” Anson instructed, checking a bleeding cut on the back of Murphy’s head. “I can’t see how bad it is.”

Doyle drew his gun. “I thought the house was empty,” he said, flicking his eyes to the other doorway that led off the entrance hall. 

“Bodie,” muttered Murphy. “It was Bodie.”

“What?” A chill froze Doyle’s blood. 

Murphy blinked up at him, trying to focus. “I’d just called Malone and as soon as I put the phone down he hit me from behind.”

“Did he say anything?” asked Doyle. “Anything at all?”

Murphy groaned, pushing Anson’s hands away as he once again tried to sit up. “Something about needing to save Cowley. But that can’t be right, can it?”

“Where is Cowley?” asked Anson, looking pointedly at Doyle. 

“He came down before you.”

“I haven’t seen him,” replied Anson. “I came straight out the back to chuck my cigar outside and found Murph.”

“Stay here.”

“Doyle...” said Anson, standing up.

“I said, stay here.”

Without giving himself time to think Doyle moved quickly back out into the hallway, immediately opening the door that led to the lounge. A quick check proved the room to be empty which left only the cellar. He hesitated by the under stairs entrance for a moment. 

“It was empty when we checked it earlier,” called Anson, who could see him from where he was in the kitchen.

“Best to be sure,” replied Doyle, opening the door and clicking the light on before stepping down into the basement. 

When he returned less than a minute later Anson was in the process of helping Murphy to his feet. 

“Anything?” asked Anson, slipping his arm around Murphy’s waist to support the taller man. 

“No,” replied Doyle.

“Told you so.”

“Charring Cross is the nearest,” said Doyle, looking with concern at Murphy. 

“Yeah, I’ll get him checked out,” agreed Anson. “What about Bodie and Cowley?”

Doyle pulled his R/T from his pocket and made two quick calls, one to Alpha and one to 3-7. There was no response. “I know where he’ll be,” he said, reassuringly, as he opened the front door for Anson and Murphy. “I’ll wait for Malone then get after him.”

“I hope you know what you’re doing,” commented Anson.

“Who knows,” replied Doyle, running his fingers through his curls in an agitated manner. “Who knows.”

******

It didn’t take Doyle long to reach the old Southbank railway terminal. They’d both thought it the ideal hideout until the last Operation Susie, after which they had realised their only error had been to trust one person too many – and that person had been George Cowley. The railway carriage was derelict now, the shot out windows boarded up and the interior still a mess, but somehow Doyle knew that this was where Bodie would run to.

The question was why was he running at all? There was something badly wrong that Doyle couldn’t work out and that frustrated and annoyed him. Maybe there had been a hidden kidnapper in the house and it was him who had hit Murphy, not Bodie. And maybe Cowley had arrived at just the wrong moment and Bodie got him out of the building to save his life. But if that was the case why weren’t they answering their R/Ts? 

Doyle parked his gold Capri behind a row of wagons and sat for a moment, staring at the red, ex post office, carriage. Yes, there was a flicker of movement through one of the remaining windows. It had to be Bodie. 

The last time they’d been here it had been such a disaster. The girl they were meant to be protecting had died, a bit like the kidnapped girl today. Maybe that’s why Bodie had brought Cowley here? No, it still didn’t make any sense. 

There was only one way to find out what was going on. Doyle got out of the car and slammed the door shut, loudly. He wanted to announce his arrival; there was no point getting Bodie nervous by being an unexpected visitor. 

Walking up to the dilapidated former travelling post office something told Doyle that this time he needed to go slow – there was going to be no more kicking doors today. He put his hand on the door knob, turned it, and stepped carefully but deliberately up into the railway carriage. 

He wasn’t sure what he was expecting to see but it certainly wasn’t George Cowley, hands tied behind his back and unconscious, lying on the floor in a corner that was still littered with shards of broken glass. As he stepped in the carriage and closed the door behind him a movement to his left made him turn to see Bodie, leaning on the edge of the old table with his gun in his hand. The safety was off. 

“What’s going on?” Doyle went for the direct approach.

“They’re trying to kill Cowley,” replied Bodie, his voice was quiet, harsh sounding. 

“Yeah?” Doyle moved slowly towards the centre of the carriage, not taking his eyes off Bodie but wanting to see for himself how badly hurt Cowley was. 

“So why didn’t you call for backup, answer your R/T?”

“Got to maintain radio silence,” Bodie ground out. He pointed his gun at Doyle and then signalled with it towards a wooden chair that was further inside the carriage, away from Cowley. “Sit down.”

“Yeah, all right,” said Doyle, keeping his voice light. He moved over to the chair and sat down, still looking at Bodie. “So what happens now?”

“We wait.”

“What for?”

“I don’t know, do I,” said Bodie, exasperated. “We just wait.”

Doyle waited as long as he could, which wasn’t very long. “Any tea in the pot?”

“It got smashed, remember?”

“Yeah, I remember. Shame that. Mind you, it was hardly an heirloom. Knicked it from the rest room at HQ, along with the rest of the stuff in here. Like a jumble sale in here, at times. Still, it’s a great bolt hole, as bolt holes go.”

“Doyle...”

“Yeah?”

“Shut up.”

“Now, that’s not very nice.”

Bodie’s eyelids fluttered closed and Doyle was instantly reminded of how tired his partner had been all week. “I can’t think with you prattling on.”

Doyle leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. “Why do you need to think, if all we’re doing is waiting?” he asked. 

Keeping his eyes closed Bodie rested his head against the wall. “I need to sleep.”

Doyle kept his voice very level. “Well how about we get Cowley to a hospital and then you can go home and get your head down? How’s that sound?”

Bodie’s eyes shot open again and he sat upright. “No! We can’t take him anywhere. He’s only safe here.”

Doyle put one hand forward. “It’s okay, it was only a suggestion. We’ll stay here then.”

At that moment George Cowley started to come around. He groaned and moved his legs and all of a sudden Bodie was off the table and over to his side in a flash. Before Doyle could even move off the chair Bodie had Cowley in a neck lock with the gun pointed at his temple. Semi conscious, Cowley was aware enough to stay very still, half open eyes struggling to focus on Doyle from across the room. 

“Bodie...” said Doyle, unsure as to whether to get up or not.

“Stay exactly where you are,” hissed Bodie, a firm hand adjusting the grip on the gun as he secured his position. He pushed his back against the faded brown velvet seat that they had used as a temporary cot and pulled Cowley closer towards him, the grip around his neck firm and unmoving. 

“Bodie,” tried Doyle again. “Be careful, you’ll hurt him.”

“Hurt him?” Bodie laughed a sarcastic, harsh laugh. “I’ve got to kill him!”

“What?”

“Krasnov...”

“Is dead.”

“...Left instructions,” said Bodie, frown lines appearing on his brow as he concentrated. “The job has to be completed.”

“The job?” Doyle’s mind thought fast. “Christ, Bodie, that was Quinn, not you.”

“Granger,” muttered Bodie, “Leniston, Howard...”

“And Morris,” finished Doyle. “I know. But you can’t kill George Cowley.” Doyle slid desperately to the edge of his seat. “Bodie, you can’t do this. This isn’t you.”

Not releasing either the grip around Cowley’s neck or on the gun Bodie leaned back slightly, resting his head against the wall. 

“It was... in hospital,” he said, his voice slightly slurred. “They said you’d left me to get blown up.”

“That’s not true,” said Doyle, but Bodie carried on.

“But you did. I got blown up and it was your fault. My leg... there was so much pain.”

“You saved me, like you always do. And I know I let you down but I never wanted you to get hurt, Bodie. You’ve got to believe me.” 

Again, Doyle’s words seemed to fall on deaf ears. “They said nobody cared what had happened, that nobody cared about me.”

“I cared, Bodie. I’ll always care.”

“They said Cowley had used me, like he always uses people... That he had to die.”

“Why now?” asked Doyle, trying a different tactic. “Why not last week when you saw him?”

“They trusted me to choose my own time. He never trusted me like that.”

“No, you’ve got it wrong.” Doyle looked into Cowley’s eyes again and saw calm resignation there. “Cowley gave you a chance when no-one else would,” he continued. “He partnered you with me. Remember, Bodie, come on. Remember.”

“I remember being hurt. I remember being tortured.” Bodie leaned his head back against the wall and banged it hard against the wood, three times.

“This isn’t you. They’ve done this to you, brainwashed you into doing this.”

“They wouldn’t let me sleep.” Bodie’s eyes slid shut. 

“I know, Bodie, I know.” Without wanting to tower over Bodie in any way Doyle slid off his seat onto his knees and started to tentatively crawl across the floor towards the other two men. When he was no more than a foot away he stopped, unwilling to push his luck too far. He settled on sitting cross legged on the floor in front of them, wincing as his denim covered rear crunched down on some of the broken glass. 

“I failed everybody,” muttered Bodie, his eyes still closed but his grip on Cowley as firm as ever.

“Why? What do you mean?”

“They told me to kill Cowley but I couldn’t even do that right. I had to protect him but I think,” he rubbed the side of his head against the wall, “I think I was protecting him from me.”

“You’re confused, Bodie,” said Doyle, knowing he was stating the obvious but needing to try. “You need to trust me, trust your instincts, and let Cowley go. Then we can get you some help and you can sleep.”

“I don’t know who to trust.”

“I know.”

“I hit Murph.”

“I know that too. He’ll he okay.”

“Ray? What should I do?” asked Bodie, his eyes finally fluttered open and he looked straight at Doyle as if he held all the answers in the world. 

“What you always do,” replied Doyle, gently. “What you know to be right.”

“What I know...?”

“Yeah. You know what’s right, Bodie. We both do. And I won’t let you down. I’ll be here all the way.”

“But I’ve done something wrong, haven’t I?” The sheer confusion in Bodie’s eyes showed plainly and Doyle tried desperately to reassure him.

“Wrong or right, it doesn’t matter anymore.”

“I have been one acquainted with the night,” Bodie muttered.

“Robert Frost at this hour?” whispered Cowley, his abused throat making his voice hoarse. “You surprise me, Bodie.”

Doyle looked at him in surprise, uncertain of what Bodie’s reaction would be to the sound of Cowley’s voice.

For a moment Bodie’s hand shook, his grasp clenched so hard around the trigger of the gun that it became impossible to believe that he wasn’t about to shoot Cowley in the head. Moments, impossible to measure, stretched before them. And then his grip relaxed and the gun slipped, dangling from loose fingers. 

Holding his breath Doyle reached out his arm and held his palm flat, imploring silently for Bodie to give him the gun which, his hand still shaking, Bodie slowly did. Doyle took the gun and slid it across the wooden floor of the railway carriage until it came to a thudding halt in the opposite corner. 

“Let Cowley go, now,” said Doyle, quietly but firmly. 

All three men breathed a sigh of relief as Bodie shakily did as he was told. 

******

Dr Ross was in her element. She had been called in along with the CI5 backup team and had arrived even before the ambulance, as if she had been standing by waiting her entire life for just such an opportunity. 

Doyle had removed Cowley’s handcuffs and made him as comfortable as possible while they waited but his main focus was Bodie. At first Bodie simply refused to move away from the corner of the railway carriage where the incident had taken place. He wouldn’t look at or speak to anyone but Doyle. 

Excruciatingly slowly, Doyle managed to get him to move bit by bit until, just as the ambulance arrived, they were both coming down the steps of the carriage into the freshly rain filled air. 

Doyle led Bodie over to the Capri and opened the passenger door, allowing him to sit down and rest in relative peace as the clean up team descended. 

As Ross started to walk towards them Doyle strode out to meet her, determined to stop her getting to Bodie. 

“Not yet, Doctor,” he said, shaking his head. “Not yet.”

Dr Ross bristled visibly. “Doyle, your partner has been put under severe strain and has been brainwashed by experts to get him to kill his own mentor. I need to de-brief him.”

“He needs to rest,” replied Doyle, side stepping so that he moved in front of her again. “You can see him tomorrow.”

“And where will he go until then?”

“Home with me. He trusts me.”

“You have great faith in your abilities, 4-5.”

“When it comes to Bodie, yeah, I suppose I do.”

Doyle looked away from her to see the paramedics struggling to bring Cowley out of the railway carriage, carefully passing the stretcher that he was lying on through the narrow doorway. Doyle nodded towards the scene and wandered over with the Doctor in tow. 

Cowley voice was still a little raw after his experience but he was waving his hand at Doyle, who immediately drew nearer.

“Remember, Quinn,” he croaked. “Programmed...”

“We know, Sir,” replied Doyle.

“No,” insisted Cowley, “he was programmed to... terminate himself after the operation was complete.” Cowley exploded into a wracking cough and the paramedics carried his stretcher across to the ambulance, leaving Doyle staring at Ross in confusion. 

“What does he mean, terminate himself?” asked Ross. 

“Bodie?” Doyle turned back to where he had left his partner sitting in the Capri, blinking his eyes in disbelief at the now empty passenger’s seat. 

He started to run. 

The Southbank Railway terminal consisted mainly of sidings where locomotives and train carriages were stored when they were not in service. As such there was very little in the way of through railway traffic but just behind the storage sheds and derelict platforms there ran a connection to the main line into London. As Doyle ran he heard the rumble of a freight train being pulled by what sounded like a very powerful diesel locomotive. Drawn as if by a magnet he sprinted towards the rumbling noise, his heart leaping in his chest as he rounded the corner of the engine shed to find Bodie, in the middle of the track, walking towards the oncoming locomotive. 

A blast of a two tone horn, loud and long, gave clear warning of the impending danger just as Doyle threw himself at his partner, knocking him off his feet, grabbing his arms around his shoulders and dragging him off the line mere seconds before the train rattled through on its journey. 

“You stupid bastard!” he screamed, as he rolled Bodie onto his back, the sound of the passing train nearly obliterating his voice. He grabbed the lapels of Bodie’s jacket and heaved them both upright. “What did you do that for?”

Bodie blinked at him, slowly, and then looked around. It started raining again, turning the road stone red around his feet. The flashing blue light from the ambulance became blurred as drips of water started to run down Bodie’s face. 

“Did you say something?” he asked, lifting a hand to wipe the raindrops out of his eyes. “Why are we here? Did something... happen?”

“No,” replied Doyle, shaking his head in relief. “Nothing happened, mate. Let’s... let’s just get back to the car, shall we? Then we can talk about it out of the rain.”

Subdued but looking more like his real self than he had since before the explosion, Bodie followed Doyle across the tracks to where the gold Capri stood. 

“Seat’s getting wet,” he said, giving the upholstery a quick wipe with the back of his hand before sitting down and slamming the door shut.

Doyle got in the driver’s side, shut the door, started the engine and turned on the fan to stop the windscreen from misting up.

Bodie squinted through the demisting glass at a figure rushing across the yard to her own car. “What’s Ross doing here?” he asked. “Does she need us?”

“Yeah,” replied Doyle, “she probably will. But not now, eh? Let’s just go home for now.”

“Now that,” said Bodie, pulling his jacket around him, stretching his legs out and closing his eyes as he laid his head back, “sounds like the best idea you’ve had in ages.”

Doyle watched him for a few minutes, until Bodie’s breathing evened out and he dropped off to sleep, then smiled and started the car for home.


End file.
